I have a yogurt strainer that I use to make Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese (lebneh). The whey drips out of the yogurt, into the box that holds the strainer.

Yesterday I felt experimental and used this whey instead of water when I made my usual ciabatta bread. The whey was thicker than usual, because the yogurt I'd bought had been thickened with pectin rather than allowed to thicken on its own; I won't be buying THAT brand again. The whey was FULL of lactose and some milk solids.

The dough rose enthusiastically (all the extra sugars, I think) but didn't have as much oven spring as usual. The bread is moist and tasty.

In the future, I'll be baking with the whey, but keeping on eye on the dough to make sure that it doesn't over-rise.

Hello,

I am working in a cheese making company. This company is making cottage cheese and as a result we have lots of whey as a by-product of cheese. Since there is a bakery factory right beside our dairy facility, we were thinking to use the whey in making our bread!!

We tried once but the loaf did not show good volume. Any body knows what could be the reason? Is there any specific method of dough preparation recommended??

I couldn't resist (Doc Tracy) picking up on your subject title since it inspired me to do this post.

I made my first cheese last week from some goat's milk that I was worried would go bad. During my "research" I  saw a video on cheese making that suggested one use the leftover whey as the liquid ingredient in their bread. Seemed like worth a try as the other alternative he offered was to water the plants. So I used my trusty  honey whole wheat bread recipe and used whey instead of water and I must say the bread turned out better than the cheese!

I was a little concerned that the lemon juice I used to make the cheese, now in the whey would adversely affect my bread but it did not and I actually think the bread turned out better. It definately had a different crumb and the flavor was good. One loaf down, one loaf popped out of the freezer to eat.

Love this place. So full of ideas!

Hi all,

It's my first post here, but I've been reading and enjoying these pages for quite some time. I'm looking for some advice.

A couple of months ago, I picked up a package of what I guessed was a sourdough starter mix in a fairly good food/baking shop in Tokyo. I already had a healthy sourdough culture in my fridge, but I was just curious and it wasn't expensive or heavy, so I just added it to my major purchases of flours, vital gluten, dried fruits, grains, etc. It's a 100g package (say, 3oz or so) but has no included information on how to use it. I searched the web-site of the company that produced it [Tomizawa] for more info and they were completely silent about its use, as well. I suppose it must be explained in some Japanese baking books that are WAY beyond my meagre Japanese reading skills.

On the label it's called "whole sour" and then, in parentheses, it says "sour seed" in Kanji (Chinese) characters. The label says it contains rye flour, wheat flour and whey (powder) but there's no mention of proportions. The recommended 'Use-by' date is approaching...

I've been baking 'New York Style' light rye bread successfully for years (without sourdough starter, mostly from bread machine recipes) but the main reason I started my first sourdough culture (with pineapple juice and rye flour) was eventually to bake real 'Bauernbrot' rye bread at home. (I'm not quite skilled enough to do that yet.)

I'm wondering what to do with this stuff. Does it need special care and feeding? Does it need milk instead of water or fruit juice? Is there really such a thing as a 'rye starter' as opposed to a regular 'wild yeast' starter? I have a respectable bread-baking library here at home, but my problems are more of the 'information-overload' kind...too much advice, quite a lot of it conflicting, and almost none of it relevant to the brutal Japanese climate I'm living in! (We're actually having a beautiful Spring this year--almost like Autumn weather--warm days and cool nights. I shouldn't complain...)

I apologize if this sounds like a 'rant' or if there are too many questions, but I'd appreciate any advice about this starter mix. I also want to thank Floyd and all the contributors to this great bakers' resource!

Best to all,

copyu

There has been discussion of whey in baking German bread so herewith are the results of some of my researches on the topic.

1-How to use dry whey for baking:

-Whey is heavy in protein and so has a tendency to toughen the texture of baked goods, so you may need to adjust your recipe accordingly.

-Don't over mix- add whey to the other dry ingredients in your recipe before blending with the wet ingrdeients.  Once combined, mix batter just long enough to ensure that the dry ingrdients have been moistened by the wet ingredients.